How to compress video for Vimeo

I need someone to tell me how to reduce video size to upload it to Vimeo. Here is the case, I have stored many videos on my computer, and now I want to share them with other people by uploading them to Vimeo, and and also free up some hard drive space. The videos I have are all HQ MOV videos. And I want to reduce those file size to save uploading time and keep them within the weekly upload limitation of 500MB. I would really appreciate any comments. Thanks!

Vimeo is a unique video sharing website which concentrates on providing original and creative video. With the number of visitors increasing on regular basis, Vimeo has attained more and more registered users. And to ensure the smooth running of the website and the quality of the videos uploaded by users, it has certain limitations limitations on contents of videos being uploaded. And in order in order not to exceed the limits, users like you need to reduce file size and avoid quality loss as little as possible.

Compress video from four aspects

To perform Vimeo video compression, you need to take the four factors that affect file size into consideration, they are codec, frame rate, bit rate, and resolution settings.

A codec, a device or PC software, is used for encoding data flow or decoding it for editing or playback. Most major video codecs are acceptable on Vimeo, but H.264 specification is the first option for best results. So since you are uploading HD video, choose the High Profile H.264 instead of Main Profile.

Frame rate is an important factor that affects video size. Videos with frames rates of 24, 25, and 30 are available to upload to Vimeo. If your video is above 30, you need to lower it down, and then the video size will be decreased.

Bit rate is the number of data that is transmitted or processed in a unit time. It can be either constant or variable. A constant bit rate will directly lead to a big file size. So choose a variable bit rate at 2,000-5, 000 Kbit/s for SD or 5000-10, 000 Kbit/s for HD.

Resolution is another factor that affects both video quality and video size, the higher it is, the better quality and the larger size the video gets. It is measured in pixels, or width and height. You can choose 1280 × 720, 640 × 480, or 640 × 360. It is not suggested to upload your video at 1080p considering your upload quotas.

You are supposed to meet its given specifications to export and compress video for Vimeo. Everyone has different settings that works best for them, which is resulted from both their habits and diverse tools used for compressing videos.

If you don’t have the faintest idea on utilizing the information mentioned above to compress videos, you can pick up another way to achieve Vimeo video compression, that is to simply convert your video format. Vimeo do not have a list of supported file formats, it only tells its users that it supports most major and popular formats. According to experiences of friends around me, MP4 can be uploaded for 100%. So you can convert your video to HD MP4 by using a video converter.

Feasible video compressor for Vimeo

Here I’d like to share a solution with you, Video Download Capture. It is an all-in-one tool to download, convert, and edit videos. It’s not only fantastic on downloading videos, but also excellent in converting videos. Follow the steps below to convert your videos to Vimeo’s specifications and at the same time decrease the file size.

Running the program after installation completes.

Tab convert, and press “add video” to add your file to convert.

Choose MP4, HQ 720p, and hit “Start” to begin converting the video files. (The default settings of codec, frame rate, bitrate, resolutions, and settings of audio are all coincidence with Vimeo’s standards, which can be checked by clicking “settings”.)

And there’re many Vimeo supported formats supported by this converter, like AVI, FLV, MKV, ETC. After the video is converted, you can trim unwanted parts of the video to further reduce the file size. Press “Video Edit” and enabling trimming, set start time and end time to cut off those unnecessary parts or you can divide the video to several parts. Then the file size will be shrinked after saving.

Besides being a video compressor for Vimeo, Video Download Capture is also a prominent video downloader which is capable of downloading online videos from most popular video websites, covering YouTube, Dailymotion, Hulu, Vimeo and so on. So if you want to save some decent online videos you watched for offline playback, just have it a try.